


your lips, my lips, apocalypse

by narrativefoiltrope



Series: a poem in your mouth [7]
Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: Angst and Romance, F/M, First Kiss, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, a continuation of the 'make me!' scene in book 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 20:07:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29598075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narrativefoiltrope/pseuds/narrativefoiltrope
Summary: what if adam and the detective had a really angst-ridden first kiss after the book 2 'make me!' confrontation haha....unless?
Relationships: Detective/Adam du Mortain, Female Detective/Adam du Mortain
Series: a poem in your mouth [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2009533
Kudos: 12





	your lips, my lips, apocalypse

“Make me!” 

Her words echo in the late night silence of the gym and reverberate in his head. He knows that she is goading him as she so often does, the first movement in a familiar dance between the two of them in which she takes one step forward and he takes two steps back. 

These steps are so often verbal—sarcastic remarks batted back and forth until one of them hits a little too close to the bone—but this time, Pandora has physically moved closer to him. 

She overwhelms him. 

Her red hair is wild around her face, mussed from sleep and nightmares. Blue eyes blaze with an unfamiliar intensity (anger, he corrects himself, but there is something else underneath that—something he has long since sensed and tried to silence within himself). He looks at the manicured finger jabbed into his chest before his eyes trace up the length of her arm and settle on her mouth set in a hard line, jaw clenched. 

Adam reasons that if this is a continuation of that familiar dance, then he should move away. No, not should—he _must._ He cannot act on what he feels, on what she feels; cannot jeopardise her safety because—

(—her mouth is so close—)

—because he is dangerous and she is—

(—her lips part slightly when she notices he’s staring at them and for all that is holy, for his centuries of solitude (isolation), of discipline (numbness), he cannot stop staring, cannot stop thinking about what her lips might feel like on his own, and he can feel his body straining towards her even as his brain screams at him to resist, and—) 

And he is moving. His hands clasp her arms and he feels gooseflesh raise on the skin beneath them. He registers a gasp, the increase in her heart rate, and pauses briefly to check that she is okay with the touch; she balls a fist in the fabric of his shirt, still damp from his workout, and drags him closer. 

He closes the little remaining distance between them. Their mouths crash together at first, teeth knocking into each other. Even now, when he is overcome and undone, Adam tries to pull back slightly to make sure she’s alright, but Pandora moves a hand up to his face and keeps his head in place—a gentle movement nearly at odds with the insistence of her mouth, a devouring force that seems to match his own hunger.

She tastes like pomegranates and something deeper, darker; a hint of red wine lingering. He had not let himself imagine what she might feel like, taste like, but this is somehow better than any half-permitted fantasy.

Above all physical sensation, though, it is the fact that it is _her_ mouth after all these months—all this time denying himself this, her—that draws a noise from him. If he were more in control of his faculties, he surely would have been embarrassed, but he cannot bring himself to care, only clutches her tighter, winding a hand into her hair.

He feels her lips curl into a smile against his and he thinks—

—he thinks.

For the first time since Pandora appeared in the training room, black slip covered by a ratty flannel, he thinks about what he’s doing.

He thinks about the repercussions: Her lying broken and bloodied, the heightened danger his attachment would put her in. How he couldn’t stop Murphy from harming her. He had felt the scar on her neck when he moved his hand to her hair but he had been (perhaps still is) too absorbed to place that scar into the gruesome context of his culpability, his failure, her frailty. 

He thinks about what he is: A man left alone behind high walls of his own making for nearly a thousand years. No, not a man—a predator, stronger than she could imagine, capable of destruction. More importantly, incapable of protecting those closest to him.

A monster. 

With that jolt, Adam pulls away from her. Pandora chases his mouth, eyes still closed, and he longs to capture her lips again. He is almost desperate for it, for her, and yet—

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he says, voice hoarse.

Her eyes open, confusion muddying her usual unsettlingly perceptive gaze. “What are you—?”

In hopes of preventing his traitorous body from acting on its own accord, he takes a step backwards to put space between them once more.  
“I apologise.”

Adam watches as realisation dawns on Pandora’s face: Her brow furrows, lips fall open before she can snap them together, and a flash of pain tightens her eyes. There is a vulnerability about her he hasn’t seen before. Her heart drums an uneven beat.

It doesn’t last long. Pandora stands up straighter, squares her shoulders, and sets her jaw, looking at him through narrowed eyes in a quietly lethal way that sends a chill down his spine.

“For kissing me or for getting my hopes up?” she asks in a voice that is too calm, too even.

Adam turns away from her. “Both.” He hears a stifled groan from behind him. “It won’t happen again.”

A sharp intake of breath follows and he can feel the tension coiling her muscles, even at a distance. “You’re such an ass, du Mortain.”

He can’t bring himself to look at her as she leaves.

**Author's Note:**

> alright this is combining like three different kiss prompts/requests: an angst-y (first) kiss for this pair, along with a kiss where one person is unable to open their eyes for a few moments afterward and a kiss that starts with one person staring at the other’s lips, trying not to kiss them, before giving in. 
> 
> i uh almost never write angst for these two (almost exclusively deep relationship fluff and banter) so this is out of my comfort zone, and definitely a departure from how i usually write adam's perspective.
> 
> the title is lyrics from the song 'apocalypse' by cigarettes after sex.
> 
> come yell about twc with me on tumblr @narrativefoiltrope!


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